Card game analysis for fast multi-criteria decision making

Multi-criteria decision methods are very popular in decision-making for many application fields thanks to their versatility and ability to involve qualitative and quantitative data in the analysis. On the other hand, the many of these techniques requires time consuming analysis and the involvement of expert users in the decision-making process. In this paper, a novel method named Card Game Analysis (CGA) is proposed to perform Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) analysis. Such methodology uses a set of cards and a suitable game procedure to perform the analysis, allowing to determine indirectly tabulated weights of involved parameters (criteria, sub-criteria, alternatives, etc.) and obtain the ranking of priorities. The CGA is defined following the footsteps of the ``structuring of the problem’’, typical of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and takes inspiration from an evaluation procedure presented in the related literature. In particular, the CGA is composed by the following steps: (1) structuring of the problem, (2) card setting, (3) card game weights evaluation, (4) synthesis of priorities. Finally, a validation through a comparison with the AHP procedure is performed by exploiting 25 case studies regarding the desirability of the enabling technologies of the Industry 4.0 for a set of companies in the Adriatic Ionian area.